Angolan Fish Stew

Afghani Chicken
Albanian Baked Lamb
Algerian Malt O Meal



So it's July 31st and I have only made it to Angola. Yep, I definitely had higher expectations for myself. Perhaps one country per letter would have made more sense. But anyway, I trudge on. And last week I made me some Angolan Fish Stew (login: iwms password:wolverines). It was an odd recipe, and included some weird additions like palm oil, gherkins, okra, and pumpkin leaves (skipped those). And the end result was okay. I thought it was a little fishy, but the wife gave it a 6 out of 10. Worth making, but if I did it again I might skip the fish part and do shrimp or chicken instead.

I also did learn some stuff about Angola (capital Luanda). The majority of the history section was about the 30+ years of fighting (to get independence from Portugal, then a Civil War in which we, again, made it worse by supporting the less Communist side). What I found more interesting was info on a tiny non-contiguous section of the country called Cabinda. Look at a map, a little piece of Angola pops up over one of the Congos. What gives? And is it just a coincidence that the tiny enclave produces 60% of Angola's oil? I think not, as does the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC), who claims the Angolan army is an occupying force that tortures and rapes civilians in the area. So, do you feel sorry for Angola because their war was exponentially inflamed by Cold War politics? Or do you get on their case for oppressing the poor Cabindans for some oil?

NBA Summer Thus Far

Here are updates on 3 teams whom are having a very active summer.

Chicago Bulls: B+
The Chicago Bulls obviously made the biggest splash of the off-season with their surprise steal of Ben Wallace and subsequent trade of Tyson Chandle for PJ Brown. This was after they were able to draft both Tyus and Thebo. I think this was a good off-season for them, but not a great one. Wallace and Brown will provide them with nice veteran balance plus even more defence, and Tyrus has some serious upside, but none of their moves address their lack of post scoring. I think they've gotten better, but none were slam dunk moves and they may have improved their team better over the long haul by either signing Harrington or drafting Aldridge.

New Orleans Hornets: B-
I am excited for the Hornets next season. They followed up their surprising near playoff run by adding Stojakovic and Chandler. I hope this results in a Chris Paul-led playoff run. It might not and both decisions may later be deeply regretted. I mean, Peja's skills were already declining and they gave him a lot of money. Meanwhile, Chandler has shown no signs of being worth the 50+ million the Bulls signed him for. But it might just work out. Chandler should be more effective in a fast-paced offense, while Stojokavic will have no problem hitting the open shots Paul creates. They overpaid, but the chemistry has a chance of making this a fruitful off-season for the Hornets.

Portland Trailblazers: A-
It was a very solid draft for the Blazers. If summer league play is any indication, Roy is going to be competing for the R.O.Y. with Foye. And although Aldridge might not have a huge impact this year, he is a big man with post moves who should be, at the least, fairly effective when he gains more strength. I'm not so sure though about their latest rumored trade, Magloire for Blake, Ha, and Skinner. It doesn't seem to totally make sense roster-wise, and I hope it means that they've found a trading partner for Randolph. But if it doesn't, they have a suprisingly overstocked frontcourt (Magloire, Randolph, Raef, Pryzbilla, and Aldridge) and have pretty much given the PG position to Jarrett Jack (who's coming off surgery). Not that Blake was that great, but he was solid, Ha has potential (or was at the least interesting), and they'll only get Magloire for a year. Right now, it seems like an odd move, but doesn't overshadow their otherwise stellar off-season.

Music Issue #3

Music Issue #1
Music Issue #2

Beirut "Gulag Orkestar"
Miguelito!!! You've been holding out on me! Your roomy told me about the Beirut album and it is marvelous, to say the least. I'm not really sure how to explain it- Eastern Europe Alt Country? What would happen if the Magnetic Fields guy had been born in Bulgaria? Black Cat White Cat Pop? I give up. Just do not pass go. This 19-year old high school dropout from Albequerque defies convention and is a can't miss listen.

Tribute To Will Oldham "I am a Cold Mountain, I am a Dull Grass"
An interesting album. What I like about a good tribute album is that it is all held together by being all one person's songs, but each artist puts their own twist on it. A sort of similar/different thing going on (Deep Chuckdaddy- I'll shut up now). Additionally, Oldham's songs are so bare that they make good subjects for different takes. I wouldn't say it's a gulagastic album, some of the covers don't add anything new, but I think it's really good and you wouldn't have to be a diehard Oldham fan to enjoy it.

Pinetop Seven "Beneath Confederate Lake"
Another thing I like about tribute albums, are they give you a chance to get acquainted with some new bands. Three particulalry interesting covers were done by Pink Nasty, Sodastream, and, a band whose album I then bought, Pinetop Seven. Am presently questioning this buy a little, but still have hope. Pinetop's an alt-country band from Chicago that genre jumps a bit between folk, jazz, and dance hall piano jams. Some of the songs I really like, particularly the instrumental ones. A few though ring a little cheesey. The problem might be the guy's voice, he's a bit of warbler. It'll probably end up as an album that I keep about half the songs of.

Celebrity Bios

Now one thing I always used to like to do when visiting home was stay up late and watch cable. Since I've gotten cable myself this practice has lost some of it's appeal, but not completely.

My last night in town I got hooked into some remarkably bad TV, A+E celebrity bios. The first one was about Traci Lords. I mostly watched this b/c I knew her name, but didn't know why. So for others who were also so unfortunately naive, Tracey Lords got popular for being an underaged porn star in the 80's. The Feds literally knocked down her door to arrest her when they found out. The rest of the bio was only moderately interesting. The theme seemed to be porn-girl-makes-good, and this was proven by her being in John Water's Cry Baby, guest spots in TV shows, recording a techno hit for the movie version of Mortal Combat, and starring in some current show on the Sci-Fi channel. But they were avoiding the fact that she was only in these things b/c of her name. So all it proves to me is if you do something notorious enough, you can manage to stay in the media game somewhere. Oh yah, one highlight was her relationship with a guy from Melrose Place. Things were going well, except for she had a cat and he a Pit Bull. And one day, yes, his dog ate her cat and they were never the same.

The second bio was much better and was about the fascinatingly surreal Anna Nicole Smith. All I had known about her before was she was in Guess ads and had married an octogenerian. But there was so much more! First off, I found it really interesting that she was dating the old guy before she got famous (met in a club she was stripping at) and refused to marry him. She claims this was because she wanted to make a name for herself first. She ended up marrying him after her Playboy success and after her Guess modeling career were cooling off. So, yah, maybe she needed some cash then, but why not as a poor white trash stripper? The case over his money is kind of interesting as well. First she won 450 million, then, on his son's appeal, got zero. Then she was told she couldn't appeal anymore, so she appealed to the Supreme Court for the chance to appeal. And they took her case. Can you imagine that scene? Anna Nicole Smith in the US Supreme Court? Crazy. And they decided in her favor, so she'll probably be able to appeal for some more moolah. And for some reason I'm rooting for her...

So those were the highlights of my TV marathon. Michael MMMMM, see what you're missing?

Take Me Out To The Ballgame

Just got back from a trip down to good ol' Chi-town and had the great fortune to attend a Cubs game. Here are a few random observations about the day...

1. The team was virtually unrecognizable to me. I wouldn't have recognized a single name other than Zambrano and Phil Nevin if I hadn't watched a game with my dad the night before

2. The game had a ton of people there. I found this impressive considering it had been thunderstorming just that morning, it was a Thursday afternoon (don't these people work? Guess I can't really judge them...), and the Cubs are like 20+ games under 500. I love the fact that they are still so much more popular than the World Serier winners across town.

3. What is it about Wrigley? And is it anything? I've always loved it there, but that might have more to do with my childhood memories of Ryno, Shawon, and Andre than the actual park. I can't really compare it favorably to any other stadiums because the only other park I visited was Commiskey (which everyone agrees sucks). Actually, that's not true. I did go to Fenway once and was wondering what the big deal was. But maybe that's just because I had Wrigley to compare it to...

4. One great thing about baseball games in general (I'm assuming this is true of other as well, I might be wrong) is just that feeling of oldness. Not to be a Blazer hater or sound like a grumpy old man, but I hate all that stupid extra entertainment that goes on at the games. You know, like those fucking annoying shirt catapulters or those gymnastic cast-off who set up near your seats and throw eachother in the air- the game, people watching, and food ordering is enough.

5. Cubs Win! Cubs Win! Cubs Win!!!

Yahoo For Drugs!!

Read about an experiment in the Economist that justified what we all already knew, drugs are good for you! The study focused on college graduates who has never done hallucinogens and went to church at least once a month. One group was given the drug that's in mushrooms and the other (the control group) got Ritalin. Not only did the mushroom group have a much better time, but they ended up happier as well. 2/3 ranked it as one of the top 5 experiences of their lives (many comparing it favorably to the birth of their child) and 80% still felt happier a month after taking the drug (this mood upswing was corroborated by family and friends).

So fuck Prozac, I think we all just need to take a lot more magic mushrooms. Why save them all for the time or our life we're least likely to be overly anxious and depressed (aka college). Maybe they could be added to work retreats somehow...

Your Politcs

Went to an interesting website, politicalcompass.org

You answer about 5 minutes of questions and it determines where you are politically on their 2-dimenionsal grid. I like their take on it. They've added to the common Left - Right Economic scale, an Authoritarian-Liberterian scale. This was to distinguish between a Leftist Authoritarian like Stalin and a Leftist Liberterian like your mom (someone had to say it).

I came out 3 to the left on the economic scale and 6 on the Liberterian while wife was 7 to the left on the economic scale and 4 on the liberterian (her score may have dropped after strongly agreeing with the "an eye for an eye" statement). The site doesn't have any individual analysis of your score, but I still found it interesting and am curious where others would land.

Another Reason To Hate Bush

Took a very good class this week which focused on the Constitution, and everyone there was just railing about Dubya's use of signing statements. My first thought was, signing what?

I'm not sure why I hadn't heard of these yet, but they are truly shocking. What happens, is after Congress has passed a bill, Bush signs it, but with it files an extra statement saying how he will interpret the bill and how his bureaocracy should follow it. Dubya has done this 750 times, more than all other Presidents combined.

It would be one thing if he was just clearing up his take on it, but he's actually using it to ignore all or parts of the passed bills. Like with the Torture Bill, he added that he didn't have to actually not torture people. There are many other examples, like adding to a bill that said the US could not use military in the Columbia, a statement that said he could.

Wow. What an incredibly ingenious method to get your way. Never veto a single bill, but instead just interpret it however you damn well please? Very very disturbing. If you want to find out more, here's a good article on it.

Haters

Just watched my first episode of The Wire and I thinks me and the wife are hooked (the only thing my wife likes better than a cop drama is someone walking into a wall. One day someone will produce a hybrid of Law and Order and The Three Stooges and she finally have reached her personal nirvana). And, maybe we were just getting too caught up in the action of it all, but we found ourselves both thinking, "Damn, cops have a hard job."

We continued this thought to, "People who criticize cops are really lame." And then this led to in my head, "Do people really still hate cops?" I remember when a PDX officer was shot, his funeral was attended by like half the town. Post-anti-authority-HS, do people still begrduge the man?

I'm leaning towards no. And, I feel like it's a similar debate to people disrespecting teachers. I always heard that people looked down on teachers, but since being one, all I've felt from people is genuine appreciation. I think people really do like cops and teachers, and we just get so mad at the few who don't that we exaggerate their numbers. Perhaps I'm just being naive and when I leave the room people rip on my salary potential and tell dead cop jokes, but I don't think so. What do others think?

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

So just watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Curious what other people thought. I enjoyed it, but felt like there were some weird aspects to it. Like the tone felt a little jarring, skipping back and forth between film noir and slap stick. And at times we were supposed to really feel terrible for a tragedy and at other times people were killed willy nilly and we were just supposed to be into the excitement of it.

Still, I like Downey Jr. and I appreciated that they kept the mystery aspects fairly confusing throughout. The dialogue was pretty good and the plot definitely kept me intrigued. In the end I think it falls into the category of a good movie whose name is so bad you almost don't see it (others would be The Milagro Beanfield War, Quiz Show, Million Dollar Baby (actually, wished I hadn't seen that one)...) Overall though I'd give it a B+ and would recommend it to anyone who likes detective novel type mysteries.

Algerian Food

Alright, the A-Z recipes is slowing down a bit. Have had relatives in for the last week and they seeemd to think Portland might have had more to offer than American Samoa and Angolan food. So, alas, all I made last week was Algerian.

The dish was called Couscous with Turmeric and Zucchini (login: IWMS password: wolverines)and making it was a bit of an epic journey. First off, I cut myself so badly that blood was strewn around the entire kitchen floor. So I found myself holding my finger up high in the air (above the heart!), while trying to stop my dog with my foot from helping out by lapping up the blood. But I made it upstairs, bandaged up, and returned to clean up.

Although I probably should have taken this as an omen, I continued cutting up my mountains of vegetables. The recipe took a surprisingly long time to prepare and soon an entire giant pot was filled to the brim. I put it all to cook and waited the 2 hours.

Now, the Culturegrams recipes sometimes tell you the number of servings you're preparing and sometimes do not. This was a not time and the sheer amount of food I made could have fed at least 2 Algerian villages. Theoretically, this is a good thing. Unfortunately the product was highly bland. It kind of reminded me of a squash and zuchini flavored malt-o-meal. Wife liked it even less than I and gave it a 3 on our ten-point scale. Very disappointing.

I'm not sure what could have been done to make it better. I hoped another night of soaking might add flavor, but was wrong. Tobasco helped, but still was not quite enough. Wife had it without couscous and that seemed to be a step in the right direction. Perhaps I should have just made the sweet meat, although the prunes in that recipe scared me off.

Oh, and I tried to learn a bit about Algerian history, and found it to be highly complex. They've been conquered by the Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals, whomever brough Islam to the North Africa (forgot), and the Ottomans. Additionally they had a pre-Hamas type election in 1991 where they democratically selected Islamic fundamentalists. The military responded with, "Naw aw, not here," and took back over. So, yes, Algerian history was not something I could get a handle on while I waited for my meal to cook. But, I do now know that Algeria is the second biggest country in Africa and 3 1/2 times the size of Texas.

3 Reasons Why The 4th Of July Is No Big Deal

1. We didn't get independence then, we "declared" it. Big friggin deal. Why are we celebrating when we declared? How about when we won (which wasn't official until 7 years later)? Wouldn't that make a bit more sense?

2. It was the second when we declared independence. As John Adams wrote, "The Second Day of July 1776 will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. . . . It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires, and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."

3. Fireworks are annoying. You feel lame if you don't go to them, but they really aren't worth the crowds to go. The fourth was only a great holiday when you were into blowing up your own.